**About the Editors**

**Ugo Cavallaro**, PhD. Director of Unit of Gynecological Oncology Research. I have a broad background in cell biology, biochemistry, and molecular oncology. As a junior scientist, I focused on the biological mechanisms that underlie the role of cell adhesion molecules in cancer cells. Upon establishing my own group, I built on that knowledge to investigate the cellular and molecular events that drive ovarian cancer. The projects that I have conducted so far as PI or co-investigator provided not only the basis and the rationale for the ongoing research, but also a series of clinically relevant experimental models. Over the last years, my group collected a repository of viable tissue from ovarian cancer and healthy normal ovary and fallopian tubes. We also have a repository of primary cell cultures and patient-derived xenografts. Recent achievements of my lab have included profiling the proteome and the phosphoproteome of primary ovarian cancer cells vs. their normal counterpart, which resulted in the discovery of the CDK7/POLR2A pathway as a novel driver in ovarian cancer. We were also the first to report the novel role of CD73 in ovarian cancer stem cells and the possibility to design CD73-based cancer stem cell-targeted therapy. My group is also interested in tumor/microenvironment interactions, with a particular emphasis on the vasculature. We identified L1CAM as a master regulator of cancer vessel morphology and function, and have recently discovered a novel, soluble L1CAM isoform with angiogenic activity involved in ovarian cancer vascularization.

**Marco Giordano**, PhD. Postdoc researcher. I obtained my Master's degree magna cum laude in Biological Sciences at the University of Calabria in December 2009. Then, I started my PhD in the laboratory of Genetics at the same University, headed by Prof. Giuseppe Passarino, working in the pioneering field of mitochondrial DNA epigenetics. I received my PhD in Operative Research (bio-pathologic curriculum) in December 2012. My first postdoc experience started in April 2013 at the University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro in the laboratory of molecular hematopoiesis and stem cell biology, headed by the late Prof. Giovanni Morrone, studying the functional cross-talk between the zinc finger protein ZNF521 and the sonic hedgehog pathway effectors Gli1/2. In 2014, I spent one year at DKFZ in Heidelberg as a visiting postdoc at the Department of Molecular Genetics headed by Prof. Dr. Peter Lichter. There, I completed two projects that focused on the functional role of ZNF521 in the biology of glioblastoma stem-like cells and its interaction with the polycomb machinery to determine their stem-like phenotype. In 2015, I joined the group of Dr. Ugo Cavallaro at IEO, which made my research more translational working on patient-derived samples and taking advantage of the collaboration with IEO clinicians. Currently, I am studying the functional contribution of the adhesion molecule L1 to the pathophysiology of ovarian cancer stem cells, focusing on the related biological mechanism and its therapeutic implications.
